The Archer
by eyespurestars
Summary: Based on the show (available on Netflix) Kurt Seyit ve Şura (Kurt Seyit and Shura), here is a multi chapter story meant to give insight into Seyit's thoughts. Seyit is a Turkish soldier who falls in love with a Russian noble girl. In the backdrop of WWI and the Russian Revolution they must deal with poverty, tragedy, and their own feelings.
1. Caring and Being Cared For

**_Author's Note: Hello! This story is based on the show Kurt _****S**_**eyit ve **_**Şura (Kurt Seyit and Shura *****Ş pronounced as "sh" as in "show"). **_This is meant to guide us into Seyit's thoughts who is probably the most elusive character in the show as far as what his inner thoughts are. My story is a multiple chapter one, probably less than 10 chapters, that might change though. It will be posted here and on Fictionpress. Thank you for your support. _**

_**Caring and Being Cared For**_

His mother, his sweet mother, with her blessed hands and soft face and tender heart—would tell him that she worried for him. For what was a man without a wife? Lonely, she would say. Homeless, she would say. Uneasy and worst of all he had no one to care for, no one to take care of him.

He could never say anything to his sweet mother the truth of his womanizing ways would break her heart. He could never tell her about his adventures as a soldier in the big city. He could never tell her that he had been taken care of by different women in different ways. He could never tell her about the Baroness, how he and the Baroness understood one another and their respective needs. The thought of marriage would never cross their minds, for that was a relationship of pleasure, the kind of pleasure that is brought on by the night.

* * *

_Alexandra_ _Julianovna_ _Verjenskaya_ awoke in him a desire to write poetry, a want to caress her lovely face, a need to give himself to her. He had known passion but he had never known _love_. Alexandra Julianovna Verjenskaya, was the girl he wanted to bring home. He would tell his mother that he would not be lonely for he had someone to care for and someone who cared for him.

The war did not stop, it did not give him pause to do as he planned. The army demanded that he save his feelings for he was to be in the battlefield. His father, his country, his fellow patriots, friends and comrades, demanded that he give all of him when the bullets flew past them at the frontier. Şura, as Alexandra preferred to be called, vowed to wait for him. He wrapped her deep in his heart, underneath his armor, to protect her from harm.

* * *

It is strange but predictable how much one is shaped by one's environment. Inevitably, what is happening around you, those around you, what you do shapes who you are and the decisions you make. As fate would have it the one woman he wanted to bring home, he would be unable to.

His father and him had been inseparable, alike in so many ways. Both stubborn, both reeking with endless rage when made angry, both demanded loyalty, both held themselves to the highest standards. Seyit always knew he would serve the Czar as his father had. It was his greatest source of pride, to have followed in his father's footsteps and to have excelled as a soldier and army major. However after having witnessed what he had, he did not want his brothers involved in war, he saw his brother's admiration for his military suit, he noticed the excitement in his face when Seyit spoke about the battlefield. But Seyit vowed to that Osman, his youngest brother would not know a battlefield, Osman's life would be a peaceful one. Osman would marry a beautiful Turkish girl, perhaps one of the neighbors. He would pick up the mantle at the farm after their father died.

Did Seyit ever regret being part of the Czar's army? Not once. It gave him his lifelong friends. It brought him to the ball where he had met Şura, his little woman.

* * *

As stubborn as he was he brought her to Alushta, his hometown, but he knew his father. He brought her as close to his home as he could. He brought her to their guest house, he would talk to his father first. He had never disobeyed his father, he needed to clarify to him his feelings; Şura was not an adventure he had in Petrograd, she was his destiny.

As fate would have it, the father and son who shared a loving bond, would with great cruelty severe that bond. Stubborn in their ways, they would not speak. They only destroyed, picked at one another's weaknesses until they ran our of words with which to insult. They were ravishing each other apart, father against son, his family left to take sides, just like their nation, neighbor fighting against neighbor in an endless war, that wanted the aristocrats' head on a platter.

But his father always protected him. When the communists, the Red Army, came to hunt down one of the Czar's bravest soldiers, his own son, Kurt Seyit Eminof, he would not give him up. He died protecting him. He would never betray his son even when he felt betrayed. As fate would have it Seyit would never be able to say goodbye, or to apologize had be wanted to, not to his sweet mother, not to his father, not to his brothers.

Fought as he did to not have Osman fight in the battlefield where guns and bullets killed . Osman died by the gun of someone who had been a soldier, one of Seyit's friends. In the chaos, one of his soldiers and dearest friends, had become a traitor, a communist.

With his family buried in the ground, he tried to save Osman, he had avenged his brother, but Seyit could not stop the blood pouring out of his brother's wound.

He would always live with regret. Regret that told him he could have done better. He should have saved his family, he should have seen that Misa was a traitor. Lost in thought Seyit left a part of him with his family. The part of him that trusted, the part of him that was capable of unconditional love.

They had died because of him.

His father's words…

_"..Never bring that woman to this house and don't come as long as you're with her."_

_"I'll live as if you never came back from the front." _

And his mother's pleads … All were seared into his brain. Try as he might, he would never be able to tune them out.

Late at night for the years to come they would haunt his dreams. They would quietly whisper until one day they began to shout.

On board on that ship that promised safety, he could only hug the corpse of his youngest brother. He barely had the mind to remember that Şura was beside him. He barely had any room in his arms left to hold her too.


	2. How to Live

_**How to Live**_

The days were long in Istanbul, money was short and emotions ran high.

These were unprecedented times. He and Şura, along with millions of others were misplaced, lived in a city not their own, a city that belonged to no one, that was occupied by perfect strangers. Why should he back down to these unwelcome guests? Who ravished, who destroyed, and who hurt? The English with their poor army skills and their lack of respect aggravated him and scared Şura. During those early days, he loved protecting her.

During those early days he wanted to do everything so she could continue living her life like she had in Russia. Even he could not do that for her. In order for her to live as she had, she needed her family by her side and he could not bring them to her, Russian citizens were scattered all around Europe, or worse some had never left Russia and laid dead in the soil.

What he loved most about her was her strength and optimism. At times he could not help but notice the sadness in her eyes when she did not receive information about her family from the Russian embassy. Time after time her face deflated at the lack of news but she'd quickly forge on a smile. She'd walk forward with her small hand wrapped around his arm.

He could not help but think it was he who had put her in this dangerous predicament.

He begins to think they should have listened to their families. Their many reasons to part made sense under the Istanbul sky, when each of them took up one corner of their small hotel room.

But if she wasn't the one for him, then how come they had lived through what they had?

He knew he had to stop listening to his demons and had to listen to his heart. He wanted her to be his wife. He wanted a future together.

But they were homeless, stateless, without a family and without a compass.

They say a man's conscience is his compass and his conscience was confused. It was riddled with conflicting voices, conflicting thoughts, and pain. Pain, that no amount of love could heal. It was unrealistic to expect her to heal him and he to heal her.

It was unbelievable the things they went through. _It had gotten to the point were to release the pain they hurt each other._

_**Author's Note: Hello! I hope if there are any readers that you are enjoying this. I just wanted to give some background information because I am a history major and I got into the show because of the historical premise. Şura and Seyit are in Istanbul.**_

_**From November 1918 to October 1923 British, Italian and French forces occupied the city after the end of the Ottoman Empire's involvement in WWI. According to an article I read, Istanbul was a city of "poverty and refugees." The Allied Forces (in WWI they were Britain, France, Russia, Italy and the US) divided the city by nationalities. The show depicts the British forces occupying Istanbul, they are not the brightest according the Seyit. In later chapters I will also mention the Turkish revolutionaries that arise in Anatolia. Historically the British wanted to provide aid to the local agencies in Anatolia in order to help suppress the Turkish revolutionaries. There are reports of the British underestimating the Turks and their need for independence.**_

_**.edu/2015/04/ottoman**_

_**900/istanbul-under-allied-occupation-1918-1923**_

I am posting on Fictionpress and on AO3


	3. Too Good at Goodbyes

_**Too Good at Goodbyes**_

Countless times Seyit returned to their room late, for he had time for everyone except Şura. He had time to go on different missions, to help different people, but increasingly and to Şura's frustration, no time to mind her. She found solace in the fact that he always returned.

During his absences, Şura tried to bat away doubts and found comfort with Petro around. Petro who smelt of Russia, who reminded her of her father, of their childhood summers spent together at his or her's house. Petro bore everyone's trust, until it was too late. Petro would reassure her at times that Seyit was fine. He would attempt to silence the gossip running around about Seyit. Petro shined in broad daylight with a million virtues, by night he'd go dark with all of his sins and openly demonstrate his flaws.

He was not a friend but a foe.

* * *

Seyit did not realize he had said goodbye to Şura the night he was arrested. He took a long look at her to memorize her face, what he ended up remembering most vividly was her worrisome expression. He had ordered Celil, his one true and most trusted friend, to have her board a ship to London. He equated London with safety and London was far away from him. Him, he thought bitterly, the one with all the enemies.

He wrote his heart out in what he had assumed were his last words to Şura. He put ink to paper and told her everything he had not recently. Some things he had never said. He poured out his love into what he had assumed was his last letter to Şura.

There was nothing holding him back, he did not fear death. Had he lived the life he wanted? Sadly no, there was no time, he would be incomplete, unfinished. He would die but his blood would not drain in vain, he knew through his cell mate, that both of them, along with the other innocent Turks, would be avenged by the revolutionaries in Anatolia.

If he was honest with himself, a small part of him was relieved, he would love her to his very last breath and he doing so would not be hurting anyone. His father's voice which haunted him daily, would be silenced. His father would not tell him he disapproved anymore, he would not hear his mother's sobs, he would not see Osman's lifeless eyes every time he closed his.

Maybe now he would see his family again, find them in another realm. Maybe like this they would love him back, for he had not gone against their wishes, he had not stayed with Şura. A long marriage filled with love was not for him, but at least he could see his father and speak with him. He would no longer put Şura in danger.

_Finally, he would not hate himself for loving her._

* * *

As always when Seyit felt like the end was approaching, it was a new beginning that was blooming. Just as he was going to be hanged he was released from prison. Şura was not in London, she was working his laundry shop. She was carrying his torch. He was both relieved and angry.

They tried it. They made love and they fought. His mistakes were unforgivable, her naivety was unforgivable, she trusted everyone, while he barely trusted himself.

He became someone who hurt her on purpose. He did not trust her. Her and Petro had worked to have him released from prison, but in what ways, _how, _were they working together? How could she be so blind to not seek her own safety in London, away from him? Her unconditional love, he realized was stupidity.

He became cowardly in his love for her and she demanded more than what he could give. He could not give her anything because he had no more words. They were all in the letter he wrote her. Had he poured out too much of his heart? His love? Had he none left to give?

The fights were endless, made up only to fight again. The vicious cycle began again every few days. She was his home, but he was willing to vacate his home.

When he told her he would regret it more if he stayed. He meant it. For this was no way to live and he wanted her to live. No amount of love would restore trust. No amount of love would heal them.

**What were they to each other?** _They were painful reminders of what they had lost._


	4. Once Upon a Time in Bulgaria

**Once Upon a Time in Bulgaria**

_Beware for this is not a fairytale, it is not a tale for the faint hearted._

* * *

Once you've seen death you cannot unsee it. As Mürvet, her beloved father, and her inseparable sister Mehire, crossed borders and trudged on the road ahead, they saw despair, cruelty and death. Those afflicted by illness, those who could walk no longer, and those paralyzed by fear and the beasts in the forests who thrived on despair.

Once you've witnessed death, it sneaks up behind you, tries to grip your emsoul/em. Mürvet and Mehire's father would never allow his children to be tortured by what they had seen, so he built them a fort made of beautiful and hopeful fairytales.

There were gangs who sought to hurt the refugees crossing their lands. There were neighborhoods that jeered at the group of refugees seeking home. Unwanted and a burden they were on the town's resources, why should they be welcomed with open arms, when they were so... so... alien?

For every unwelcoming face and mean remark they would find kindness. At welcoming neighborhoods, Mürvet and Mehire were a sight to see. Homely and kind women held them close, the twins, with their big hazel eyes attracted motherly instincts. On these kind and homely women, Mürvet and Mehire would search for their mother. It had been so long since they had seen her, they had forgotten what she looked and what she smelt like. Mürvet liked to imagine that her mother would have soft hands, like the woman who once gave her and the other children in the group bread. Mürvet liked to think her mother smelt like jasmine, Mehire would giggle and say she _**knew **_their mother smelt like vanilla.

Despite having been twins, the girls proved to be very different in temperament. They could never agree on anything but they balanced each other out. Mürvet and Mehire were expected by their father to be quiet and observant as to not draw any attention to themselves. Mürvet would follow behind him quietly, Mehire would sometimes walk ahead of him. He often had to remind her to stay close, for in foreign and as immigrants they were easy prey: for gangs, thieves, or any one who sought to do them harm. Their father and the girls had to pretend to be so many different people. They had to learn stay silent and in the background in order to survive.

Her dearest _baba_, would tell her and her sister that it was all a game. As they got older they understood what they were doing, pretending to fit in, in whatever country they were crossing, was not an innocent game, it was the only way they could stay alive.

Mehire would feel constricted. The situation she was in subdued her playful personality. She had always been more extroverted and easily alarmed than her sister. Mürvet, on the other hand, had a quiet resilience. To the inexperienced eye, she might appear shy or weak, but underneath that quiet demeanor there was steel.

Their father told fanciful stories as they hid in different forests to ease the twins and the other children in their group. He hoped that by distracting them they would not cry when they heard animals howling in the middle of the night. Mürvet always sat enthralled by his stories, memorizing every line her father told. Most of his stories spoke about brave wolves fighting the gangs that chased Mürvet and her family. "Do not cry! Do not despair! Because the wolves can sense it and they will not help us!" He'd tell the children, as he pulled his daughters closer to him. Shivering in the middle of the night, Mürvet swore she heard the wolves approaching them, they sensed her. Hopefully they could sense her fearlessness, as she gripped her father's hands. Wolves became her favorite animal, she admired their bravery and sought to emulate it.

Mürvet and Mehire were only six when they got separated from their mother and brother. They had not understood what was happening then. They remembered their mother hurrying them as they carried their belongings. Then they remembered only the long walks from town to town with their father. Their father was the kindest soul, with warm hands, with hazel eyes like theirs, and a bright smile. He was the best dad anyone could have, always sweet to his daughters, acting as best he could to be both mother and father. He always promised the girls that they would find their mother and brother. They would find their home and their family soon. Soon they will be cared for by their beautiful mother, soon they would play with their brother.

* * *

Mürvet and Mehire did not understand the gravity of the situation until they were teenagers and their father died. He had died of tuberculosis. In their plight to get home they never noticed that their father was sick. The day he died, their world became dark, he was gone and they were left all alone in a world torn apart by war, they knew they had to survive in a strange country without him. They knew that had to pretend a little bit more, had to pretend a little bit longer to be something they were not.

_They had to pretend not to feel the fear creeping in._

* * *

Mürvet and Mehire had only each other left. Each day was getting harder and harder, slowly, Mehire lost her vibrancy, she too would fall ill. When Mürvet lost her she lost a part of her soul. The person who knew her inside and out was gone. She was in every sense of the word, alone. She had held her sister close until her last breaths, she would no longer have her sister to hold, so she wrapped her arms around her body. She laid her head in a makeshift pillow, one made out of hay. That first night alone, Mürvet hugged herself and sobbed into sleep finally took over.

She was homeless, stateless, and depending on the kindness of strangers. She was a skillful cook and would help her camp of fellow refugees by cooking a meal with whatever ingredients were available. She would tell her father's stories to anyone who would listen but she found that children were more responsive to her father's stories. The young children of the camp kept her stay alive without them even knowing it. Because of them she began to tell stories of her own. She felt treasured with their small hands in hers, they reminded her of her sister and father. She knew that she could not afford to lose hope, she had to tell herself that her mother and brother were out there, safe and looking for her, she would stay alive for them. She would reach home.

One day a letter arrived to the camp, it came from a man named Hakki.

Hakki happened to be the name of her brother. Had they found each other?

He arrived in Bulgaria to take her more. She arrived to Istanbul by train.

She had tears in her eyes when she saw her mother. Her mother, Emine, was more beautiful than Mürvet and Mehire had ever imagined her to be. The best part was hugging her mother for the first time in twelve years, the worst part was breaking her heart by informing her that Mehire and _baba_ would not come home.


	5. It is not light that we need but fire

**It is not light we need but fire. **

_"In everyone's life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being." -A.S._

* * *

** Danger!**

Danger, was around the corner, Mürvet's mother, Emine, warned.

Mürvet was to be careful, she was not to draw attention to herself, and walk behind her brother and mother. She was to be aware and to stay far away from cruel English soldiers who hurt young women. It seemed to Mürvet that home was not too different from Bulgaria where she had last been and where she feared the same things. But she was curious about this place where her mother had built a home, she was curious about her mother, about her brother, there were so many things she did not know and how she wished to learn. Unexpectedly she found herself trying to catch a glimpse of the neighborhood through curtain windows though her mother told her not to, she was quickly berated for her curiosity. Unexpectedly and sadly she did not know how to be around her family, as happy as she was to be there with them. It has been twelve long years and she wanted to know how her mom liked her bread and coffee, but first she wanted to be held in her mother's arms.

**Danger! **Danger _was_ near! Emine was right, for in the middle of the night, Mürvet was forcibly awaken by her mother, smoke filtering in every corner of her room. A fire had broken out in the neighborhood and reached their home!

Quick in the face of adversity, her mother helped Mürvet dress and once outside Mürvet gathered the neighborhood's children away from the flames.

Mürvet could not fathom why her mother had run inside the burning house, fearing her mother's safety she ran after her. She would strongnot/strong lose her mother when she had just found her.

Suddenly she was grabbed from behind, big arms engulfed her body. emThese/em were the type of men her mother had warned her about! The kind who take advantage of tragedy to commit crimes! She shouted for her mother, for help, but her screams were drowned out by the fire.

She stopped screaming when she found herself submerged in water. The man had dunked in the water fountain! As she looked up at the perpetrator, she found herself staring at a man the height of trees, with golden hair, and the most beautiful pair of ocean eyes.

Turns out that in the chaos of the situation, Mürvet's long skirt had caught fire without her noticing.

* * *

Seyit did a double take. It was clear by her expression that she was upset, before he could explain that her skirt had been on fire, he had to look twice. He was looking at an exquisite face, dark eyebrows framing big, beautiful, hazel eyes. Her dark hair spread through the water causing ripples. It was clear despite the girl's face being contorted into a frown, that she was beautiful.

As he helped salvage furniture from the neighborhood and said his goodbyes to Mr. Lüftu (the man was the reason why he was in that neighborhood at that time of night, he had recently become acquainted with him, after having shared a jail with the man's now deceased brother) his eyes _unwillingly_ gravitated towards the girl. A few days later he would learn her name was _Mürvet_. He found himself sounding out her name in his head, every time he looked at the burn scar on his arm.


	6. The Unknown

**The Unknown**

There were many things that Mürvet did not know. Before now, her life had consisted of trying to survive and of trying to find home. She had learned to keep quiet around her mother, who was stern and overprotective. She did not want to upset or bother her mother. Her mother had suspicions about everyone; about people's intentions and feelings.

Mürvet, though now eighteen, still wanted to be held by her mother. She wanted to be loved and hugged by her mother, to recover time from all those lost years. But as she soon learned it proved hard for her mother to demonstrate emotion. Not because her mother was a bad person but because what she had seen turned her distrustful. Just as Mürvet, Mehire and their father, their mother had to survive with a little boy at her side for many years. Mürvet knew that women traveling alone were susceptible to many injustices. A woman seeking asylum alone without her husband was easy to ridicule and hurt.

Mürvet had been lucky to have her father around, who tried to preserve her childhood for as long as he could by inciting games and filling her world with stories despite the perilous times. He never made it seem like what they were experiencing was different from what other people were experiencing, of course as she got older she realized they were on a different path than most people. Most people had a home and their mother and father.

Despite it all and thanks to her father Mürvet had grown observant but not distrustful, resilient to harsh weather but not harsh words. She possessed an innocence untainted by war, by hunger, by pain. Despite it all she inherently believed in goodness, she believed people were good despite the ongoing war and the occupation of Istanbul. She believed that things would get better in time ( and with the help of the Turkish revolutionaries whom she heard whispers about but pretended not to). If she ever distrusted it was because doubt would be planted in her by others. Her father and experience had prepared her to make a piece of bread last a week but unable to grasp why people sometimes acted the way they did. She tried not to cry when her mother lashed out at her, for something her father would kiss her forehead for.

* * *

It seemed people here, in Pera, loved to talk about one another. For now, Pera was her temporary home, a bustling city that her mother hated. With the fire having damaged a portion of her mother's home, her mother and her were to stay at a family friend's hotel while their house was being repaired. Mürvet tried to ignore the gossip around her, she had never had time for such mundane things before, and honestly she did not like it. But when Ayse (the daughter of their old family friend, a girl close to Mürvet's age and friendly) told her how liberally people lived in Pera, she was shocked. Her mother had been right to be distrustful of this place.

While in Pera she learned that the man who had helped her during the fire ran a laundry shop located near the hotel. She wondered about him. But she also wondered about many other things. But most of the time she wondered how the man's kisses felt. She had seen him kiss a beautiful young lady. His wife she assumed, a beautiful blonde. With a short glimpse, she noticed his wife was a fashionable, petite woman, with a sweet voice. A fitting image of who she imagined might attract the man's affections. His beautiful wife, she assumed until Ayse told her otherwise.

The young beautiful lady was not his wife, but one of _those women who lived and worked_ in Pera, Ayse whispered to an incredulous Mürvet one night. Mürvet had allowed her curiosity to roam, and watched them because whatever was exchanged between them (money or not), she noticed the light in the woman's and man's eyes, a look that spoke of love and tenderness. A look that cannot be bought, a look full with memories, a look that like gravity pulled them together.

She had seen death but not **love** and she had never seen a man and a woman _kiss._

There were so many things she did not know. But a kiss, she knew, she would only want from Seyit. She had learned his name recently but had prohibited herself from thinking about that name. When thoughts about kisses crossed her mind, she shooed them away, for it was an inappropriate thought (he might not be married but it was still not right), but it was a thought that filled her stomach with butterflies.

* * *

Mürvet knew her mother to be very protective, how could she not be? They had lost each other and after twelve years they had found each other. To her dismay, she had overheard her mother talk about marriage, Mürvet's marriage. Her mother wanted to marry her off to safety. To marry her off in order to be away from danger; for her to able to walk through this new, unknown city besides a brave husband. Only then, her mother was convinced, no English soldier could touch her, no harm could befall her.

Mürvet did not want to part from her mother. She would not go against her mother's wishes but she did not want to marry so soon.

Besides the inspiration to her stories, the man who played the prince or the wolf, at her whim, the protagonist of all the stories she told to entertain children, was one man. The one man she rarely permitted herself to think about, but the one that she imagined as her husband, as far fetched as that idea was.

Unknown to Mürvet, Lüftu also imagined the same man as her husband. He had become friends with Seyit, Lüftu had lost one brother but gained another. Seyit had proven himself an asset to his revolutionary cause, both wanted the city free from the Allied Forces. Plus he had noticed the way Seyit looked at Mürvet, with a glint of amusement and interest. Two factors that he felt were enough to bring them together. He would marry off his new brother to a kind and beautiful girl, if Mürvet wanted it so. If she did then Emine would be comforted that her daughter would be safe and _cared for._


End file.
